March Monthly Mini and More

Could not resist the alliterative title for this post.

My monthly mini is in the photo below, on the right. This is based on Pam Buda's "Glad Tidings" pattern. I couldn't finish the borders according to the pattern because I couldn't find fabrics that I liked in combination for the borders as written. The green I used in the quilt is a very old one, which I couldn't currently match, and I had used all I had in the blocks. This photo was taken in the "Christmas Corner" of my sewing room.

I had planned to make this my monthly mini last December, but was still trying to match the green, so I set it aside and made the quilt on the left in the photo above, instead. I finally faced the fact that I couldn't match the green and made do with a black Judie Rothermel print that had tiny red/green flowers printed on it, and I didn't use cornerstones. 

Since it is in holiday colors, I chose a holiday print for the backing, which you can see below. I really struggled to get photos that show the quilting well, since I couldn't get the sun streaming through the window at 9:00 p.m. This is the best I could do, with the Ott-lite on my cutting table laying on its side.

This finished at about 11"x14". I am linking this with Wendy The Constant Quilter, where you will find the list of mini-acs with links to check out their creations.

My version of Gay Bomers "Heartfelt" quilt has been delivered to my neighborhood longarm quilter. I just can't quilt everything I piece--there isn't time. 

It is about 86" square. You can see the ripples in the two lower corners. I did try to correct those, and they look better, but I didn't get a photo after the repair. I did not do any of the appliqué in the pattern, including the center medallion. I did my own setting and borders. After the fussy sashing and cornerstones I chose, I couldn't bring myself to do fussy borders. Except for the 4 corner blocks, each block contains different purples. At first I was worried that I would not have enough purples to use different ones in each block, but I had a box of purples left that I didn't even touch. (And I bought more yesterday.)

Yesterday was the final meeting of The Tiny Club at Village Dry Goods.  I have yet to get all the blocks made, but these are some of the ones I have made since my last post.

Can you believe all those tiny pieces in a 2" finished block? 

Wait until you see some of the blocks in the patterns we got yesterday! Lynn told me to let you know that if you have been waiting for the next set of patterns and rulers to be available, he will have them ready by April 7th and you can contact Village Dry Goods to get your hands on them.

Here is Lynn with one of the ways he is using his tiny blocks.

But that isn't an end to the fun I've had lately. Last week Chooky had a spur-of-the-moment Zoom session and I was able to pop in and enjoy the gals chatting and stitching for an hour.

I really need to get back into the routine of posting more than once a month, so I don't have such lengthy posts, but if you have stayed with me through it all, I thank you. 

Until next time, be creative and be kind,

Janet O.

I wanted to leave you with a peek at what makes me smile each  morning during the long winters. I have these at 5 windows in my home right now, but these two window ledges are the ones where they have been blooming all winter. Click to enlarge.

February Monthly Mini and the Month in Review

Has it really been a month since my last post? And I have so little to show for all the days that have passed. In fact, my Monthly Mini is hardly worth mentioning. But I must, so here it is.

This is truly a little thing--5" square. That means the blocks finish at 1 1/4". It is a mug rug I made for my retreat buddy. Her name is Kim, so I made this from Kim Diehl scraps.  I'm linking with Wendy, (The Constant Quilter) the organizer of our monthly mini roundup. Check out her blog to see what the others have made for February.

Aside from this bitty thing, I have spent a little time here and there continuing to assemble my Sentimental Stitches Heartfelt top, from a BOW with Gay Bomers last year. I left out the appliquéd medallion center, and any other appliqué blocks. These are 8" blocks. I've set them on point and added my favorite sashing and cornerstones. It's coming along. 

The top left side is sewn together. The middle row needs the sashing attached on either side before it is added to the mothership. The lower right side is all still separate blocks, sashing pieces and cornerstones. The fabric hanging on the right side will be the outer border. I am trying to decide whether or not to put a narrow cream strip between the setting triangles and that outer border.

I hope everyone had a nice Valentine's Day--two weeks ago. Hubby and I decided not to brave the crowds to eat out that night. Instead we had a pancake brunch at a small local pancake shop that has yummy gluten free pancakes on their menu. I had mine smothered in strawberries and cream.We sat in their loft, and  I tried to get a selfie of the bright red wall behind us, which seemed so appropriate for Valentines.

After brunch we shopped for strawberries. We found lovely ones at the FIFTH store we tried, and I bought 9 pounds of them. Came home and dipped most of them (I love everything about dipping strawberries), and delivered them to widows, elderly, family, and friends. It is my favorite Valentine's Day tradition!

I have talked before about the Tiny Club at the quilt shop over the mountain. It was a 3 session class that ended in January. But happy news--there is a "Part II"! We get three more months of tiny blocks, with 3 new rulers to go with the patterns this time around. Below, left you can see Lynn showing what we could be making with the next group of patterns. If you are interested in Lynn's patterns and rulers, you can click the link above to contact the quilt shop for info.

Well, I actually joined a guild in January--it is called Sew Small, of course, and focuses on small and miniature blocks. Lo and behold, at the February meeting there was Lynn again! (Photo above, right.) It is amazing what he can figure out with those tiny pieces. 

I haven't started on the second series of blocks yet, but this shows what I have made so far. First look at the photo on the left. Then look at the right to see a size perspective with my hand in the photo. These all finish at 2".

These three blocks at the bottom are ones I had made from my own patterns. 

I finished up the month with a fun evening Zooming with friends from around the world, with Chookyblue of Australia playing host. What fun we have, even if the Australians got pretty excitable this time about their many frustrations with American spelling. (Don't bring it up with them. It's a touchy subject.)   ;)

There were several more participants than this, but my iPad mini only shows 9 per screen.

What a joy it is to be able to visit across the continents and talk about things that matter most, and things that really don't matter at all, in the grand scheme of things. It can be one of the worst days, but I come away from these sessions uplifted and smiling. Thanks, gals! You are wonderful tonic in these crazy times!

My hopes and prayers are for a quick end to the invasion of Ukraine. My heart is with those who have had to evacuate, those who have been separated from loved ones, those who are taking up arms to defend their country, and those who have family in Ukraine. May this be over soon!

Janet O.

January Monthly Mini and The Baggie Challenge Conclusion

Barbara recently mentioned that she was the recipient of a boatload of scraps (maybe she didn't say boatload) from Carol Y.  I was also blessed by Carol with a good sized box of her scraps. As I spent a pleasant hour or so sorting through them, I ended up with a nice little pile of some vintage scraps. Those scraps, along with a few little pieces from my Mom's scraps, became my monthly mini. Thank you, Carol!

This finished at 11 1/2" x 14". I am thinking about calling it "Half a Century". I am no expert, but the scraps seemed to include a couple of mourning prints from the early 20th century, along with a piece of indigo. There was a piece or two that appeared to be from the 30s or 40s, and a piece from my Mom's scraps seemed to be more 1950s to me. I did have to fill in the blanks a bit with a couple of little repro scraps, and the border print is definitely a repro. I don't think the binding is a repro--it was just a piece of leftover binding from an old project. But the red matched the color of the red in the blocks, and I liked the diagonal pattern in it.

The quilting was kept very simple. Straight lines all the way, and only neutral grey and navy blue threads were needed.

Linking here with Wendy (The Constant Quilter). Check her out for the list of other monthly mini-acs.

After making a monthly mini for the past 4 years, and making minis for a few years before we started the monthly gathering, I am running out of room for all of these little quilts. I have given away many of them, but there are still dozens of them here. They are rolled up and stuffed in baskets, folded on shelves, covering tabletops, and hung on walls. I realized tonight that I have not changed my yardstick gallery in years. So I hung my new little quilt there. Okay, so it was only one change--but it was a change. 

So let's get down to business. I had issued a baggie challenge to Wendy's monthly mini makers during the last quarter of 2021. It is time to wrap it up and choose winners of prizes! There were twelve of us who participated, and it was so fun to see your creations. I marveled at the creativity. Participants were as follows, and are linked to their post with their baggie challenge mini:

Amity Quilter

Barrister's Block

Busy Thimble

Gladiquilts

JulieK Quilts

My Material Creations

Quilts, Gravestones and Elusive Ancestors

Rogue Quilter (me) I wasn't included in the drawing, of course.

The Constant Quilter

The Joyful Quilter

Timeless Reflections

Wabi Sabi Quilts

There were a couple of others that started baggie projects, but I couldn't see that they were completed. 

The winner of the drawing is Sandy at My Material Creations. Congratulations, Sandy! Your prize is one of the quilts shown below (with a few other goodies). Let me know via email which one you would like. I was just going to send the winner my December baggie challenge creation, but it is a little bigger than most of my minis. If it is larger than you would like, I have included a couple of the smaller minis I have made from bags of scraps. It is your choice.

I drew three other names, and they will receive a small surprise package. They are The Joyful Quilter, Gladiquilts, and JulieK Quilts. I will be in touch with you if I don't already have your address. Congrats to all the winners, and my sincere thanks to all who participated. It was really a treat to see the wonderful things you all made from a container of scraps!

One final thing, while we are speaking of challenges. I grew up with a puzzle for the family to work on during the holidays. After my father passed at Christmastime 5 years ago, my Mom kept a puzzle going year round, until she had to move from her home because of health issues. I have wanted to put up a puzzle in my home, but I could never figure out where it wouldn't be in the way.

Well, this year, after we took down the Christmas tree, I decided not to move the furniture back, and we put up a puzzle in the place where the tree had been. We started out with an easier, 500 piece puzzle, and we had it done pretty quickly.

Now for the challenging part. Hubby was going to town and asked if I needed anything. I had seen this puzzle at Natural Grocers earlier in the week and had resisted (even though I am fascinated by sea turtles). So I caved and asked him to pick it up. It took all the time I could afford Saturday just to turn all the pieces over and find the straight edges. Haven't connected any of them yet. The entire border is solid black. Won't that be fun? But I love this puzzle! Enlarge the photo to get a good look at the intricate stained glass effect. Wanna come help?

I'll leave you with this photo of the sun breaking through the frosty branches the other morning, after it crested the mountaintop. It has been a deep freeze here lately, but we haven't had the snow our friends in New England and surrounding areas are experiencing.

Stay safe and warm, and be gentle with each other.

Until next time,

Janet O. 

December Monthly Mini

Wasn't sure I could pull it off this month, but just this week I got this put together. The stars finish at 6", so it isn't as "mini" as many I make, but I enjoyed putting this together. It finishes at 18". I am linking up with Wendy at The Constant Quilter blog for the monthly mini parade. Check them out. Is this the fourth year we have been doing the monthly minis?

This may look awfully familiar because the color scheme is almost the same as last month's mini. I just added green this month in honor of the holiday season.I had toyed with the idea of a red binding, but when I tested reds against the finished top, they seemed to take away from the gold stars.

You can see the quilting, which was a mix of diagonal lines and stitch-in-the-ditch, in the photo below.

Friend Kathy knows that I don't enjoy switching threads (which she loves). But I do it sometimes because I think it will be the best look for the quilt. So as I was auditioning thread colors, I thought of Kathy and the photos she takes of  her pretty bunch of spools laying on the quilt. I took the photo below in honor of Kathy. :)

This was taken post-quilting, but pre-binding. I had just cut the binding strips and laid them around the edges. The reds in this photo are brighter than in real life, but the other colors are truer than in the first photo.

It may be a stretch, but this quilt is for my "baggie challenge". These fabrics weren't in a baggie--they have been sitting in a project box for years. I was taking a class from Marsha McClosky and I had the reds/greens/golds (along with a few neutrals) in my project box for the class. When I got to class I learned that we had the option of making the blocks in miniature, which, of course, I chose to do. So I had a LOT of fabric leftover, and it has been marinating in the box for years.

The challenge allowed for the addition of two fabrics--a neutral and a color. Black was my neutral in this quilt, so I added the black in the center column. The color I added was the red in the front of the left column. It had arrived at my home two days before Christmas in a baggie of "scraps" from my retreat buddy, so I felt it belonged in my baggie challenge piece.

In January I will do a post where I will link up all of the monthly mini makers who chose to participate in my baggie challenge. I will draw a name to receive one of the quilts I have made from baggies of scraps in the past. I may have a few other prizes for some lucky participants, too.

I hope you had a lovely holiday, whether you were surrounded by friends and/or family, or celebrated quietly. We had a unique Christmas Eve/Day activity. Our DIL is an artist by profession. She offered to give us all a chance to try our hand at painting with acrylics on canvas. She put a LOT of work into it, and transformed our living room into a classroom. 

She had invited us to bring a picture or object that we wanted to use as our inspiration, and then she gave us a session of instructions. We were then set loose to try our hand, as she moved among us giving help and suggestions as needed.

Some family members have natural artistic talent and the rest of us were out of our element, but had a good time. We spent hours on Christmas Eve working on our paintings, and those of us who hadn't quite finished up spent a few more hours on Christmas Day.

Here we are on Christmas afternoon with our mostly finished pieces, and our proud teacher. Our granddaughter (front and center) had started two pieces, so neither was completed yet. Our oldest son (married to our teacher, and standing on the far right) was doing a more involved piece, since he has had private lessons already, and he still had more to do. Hubby is absent from the photo as he chose to spend the time with our youngest grandson who has disabilities that prevent his participation. Our oldest daughter and her family remained in Oregon for Christmas, so they are missing as well.

It was a stretch for some of us who are artistically challenged, but it was fun to try something new!

We celebrated New Year's Eve just the two of us this year. We usually have some family and/or friends over. But hubby had his second dose of the Shingrix vaccine yesterday and he has been feverish, achy and coughing. So we had no guests and hubby went to bed early. I just finished up New Year's Eve with my usual routine, watching the classic movie, "Bachelor Mother", starring Ginger Rogers and David Niven. Love that movie! As midnight strikes I can look out the French doors of our family room and see fireworks going off from one end of our valley to the other. As much as I enjoy fireworks, I always worry for all the people and animals that are traumatized by the noise.

May you enjoy a wonderful start to the new year, and may we make it a kinder, healthier year for us all. 

Until next time,

Janet O.

I leave you with the photo that was the inspiration for my painting attempt. This was taken just outside those family room French doors as the full moon rose over the Bear River Range of mountains on December 18th.

 

The Stockings Were Hung...

...on the Shaker peg rack in the kitchen, because I don't have a mantel. :)

This is the sum total of my sewing since my last post over 2 weeks ago.

DD#1 reached out a couple of weeks ago to see if I would have time to make stockings for her 3 family members. How hard could that be, I wondered? Even the fact that she wanted each one a different patchwork design made out of recycled men's shirts didn't deter me. And in order to make sure she would receive them before Christmas Eve, I had two weeks to complete them.

She was kind enough to link me to the excellent tutorial at Cluck, Cluck, Sew, which gives great instructions for the method, but has no pattern. I used a shape from a pattern my other daughter still had from a class she had taken with her sister many years ago. The tutorial also tells you how to adapt the double hourglass block in another of her tutorials to make a small block for the stocking. My daughter loved that design, so of course, I had to make one. Keep in mind that I only had 2 weeks in which to finish all three stockings. That double hourglass stocking took every spare minute of that first week! I had to simplify!

The next design I attempted was the chevron design created with HSTs. This went much faster. From cutting to having the stocking front and back sewn together, it was finished in one day. I didn't attach the cuff, hanging loop, and lining until I had  the name and holly stitched on the cuff.

The final stocking was the alternating pinwheel design. It took two days of my sewing time to create. Without a pattern that specifies the stocking shape and how many blocks on each row--or even what size blocks, I would just make blocks and lay them out, place the pattern over it and see if everything was covered. I would try to take into account the shrinkage that would happen when it was all sewn together. But sometimes I missed my guess and had to add a row, or add blocks to the ends of rows as things came together. After 1 1/2 weeks the three stockings were created, but the cuffs needed finishing.

I spent whatever sewing time I could scrounge over the next couple of days getting names and holly stitched on the cuffs and assembling all the parts to complete the stocking. I made it within the two weeks, but just barely. 

I never would have made it without my new best friend in my sewing room, an Accuquilt Go!Big cutter. This was gifted to me early in the year (THANK YOU--you know who you are!). With Mom's needs, and then her passing, and my husband's retirement and our "retirement trip", it took a few months before I was really able to play with it and get a feel for what it can do for me. I am using it on several projects that are in the works, and on these stocking I used it to cut all the 1 1/4" strips for the double hourglass stocking. The 2" finished HST die cut every triangle for the Chevron pattern, and I didn't have to square up a single block. Using the 2" finished square die and the 1" finished HST die, the final stocking went together so smoothly and, again, I didn't have to square up a single pinwheel block. 

If you want to attempt making patchwork stockings, I highly recommend the links above--but maybe give yourself a little more time to get them finished--like next Christmas! :)

In the midst of all this stocking mayhem, we held meeting #2 of the Tiny Club at Village Dry Goods. Lynn has outdone himself in coming up with creative ways to make a 3x3 grid out of 2" finished blocks. Look at what he shared with us this time.

Some of you have already contacted Village Dry Goods about getting Lynn's rulers and patterns. They are trying to accommodate those who want to purchase them, so check the link above and get in touch with them, if you would like to join this mini madness!

Lynn had very concise "storyboard" samples of each of this month's four new blocks. Though I haven't had a chance to try making any of them yet, I am really anxious to see what I can do.

 

Recently I heard a more succinct version of the old familiar saying, "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." This one is simply, "If you can't be kind, be quiet." We could use a whole lot more of both--kindness and quiet!

My prayers and thoughts are with those whose lives were devastated by the tornadoes. 

Until next time, 

Janet O.

Leaving you with another recent sunset, captured on a brief, chilly walk a few evenings ago.

November Monthly Mini and Celebrations

It can't be December yet. I haven't posted my November mini! So here it is.The top was finished a couple of weeks ago, but birthday celebrations and Thanksgiving kept me from getting it quilted and bound until now. This finished at 14". I will link up here with Wendy, The Constant Quilter (she really is), for our Monthly Mini listing.

The color is not accurate here, but this gives you a bit of a look at the quilting. There really needs to be some stitching in the larger HSTs, but I want it to be hand quilting, so that will come later.

The machine quilting shows up better in this photo of the back. I kept it as simple as possible, because I was so far behind. I had thought about feathers, but had to pass on them this time.

The colors in the quilt were inspired by a stunning monthly mini made by Gladi (seriously, all her quilts are stunning) back in September, which you can see on her blog here. I was smitten by her quilt, and knew I wanted to copy her colors. I was just getting ready to join in on Pam Buda's Quilt Archeology doll quilt, Dear Prudence, when I saw Gladi's post, and I knew I would transfer that color palette over to Pam's design. 

Pam's pattern was for a larger doll quilt than this. I cut all the parts for the whole quilt and then realized I had made a major error and had cut everything wrong. That is what I get when I work too late at night. I had to cut things down for each block. After reworking 6 blocks, I'd had enough. I chose 5 of the six blocks and made a smaller version of Dear Prudence.

As I had worked on this little quilt I was sure I had used this palette before. I finally realized where I'd used it when I sat down to Thanksgiving dinner. The first quilt I'd made with these colors was hanging in our dining room. This was a SAL at Humble Quilts blog, where Lori had us choose an orphan block and the SAL was the process of adding the borders. It was called "Faithful". Here are the two quilts together, with my hand in the photo to give size perspective.

I hope all my friends in the U.S. had a lovely Thanksgiving last week. We had planned on having 7 or 8 family members for dinner, which is small for us. But Thanksgiving morning our youngest son, who was visiting with us for the holiday, was informed that he had been exposed to COVID the night before. We had no other family come, under the circumstances, and we just had 3 for dinner. But I have to say, no matter how few will be eating, it still makes a mess to prepare it. 

My birthday usually falls in the same week as Thanksgiving, and often gets swallowed up by the preparations. In such cases we try to celebrate a week early. Happily, hubby gifted me with tickets to a Van Gogh immersion experience available in Salt Lake City the week before.

It was incredible. Words can't convey and photos don't quite do it justice, but I will try to give you a taste. I understand there are different versions of this experience across the country, but the idea is similar. There was a photo op just inside, where they offered to take your photo  with your phone. There were four different rooms of this experience, but the last one is where you spend the bulk of your time. You can click on any of these photos to enlarge them.

In the experience on the left, above, all of the water glimmered. In the picture on the right, if you watched closely, you might catch a self-portrait blinking. And in the portraits where he was smoking a pipe, the smoke wafted from the barrel of the pipe.

I took video of some of the experiences, but the files are too large to upload. I'll try to give you an idea of what was going on. Keep in mind that there is effective mood music  going on during the whole thing.

On the left was the beginning of this picture. Then the petals started fluttering around the room until it felt you were in a snowstorm of flower petals, as on the right. Then the petals began to disappear, and there was a whole different painting on the walls behind them.

At the beginning of this painting experience the room was dark. Then the swirls began to move about the walls. They continued to move and expand until it had finally become "Starry Night." Each time the paintings changed, the transition was different. 

I would say if you get the opportunity to attend, it would be well worth it.

I am humbled by the number of "mini-acs" who are participating in my Baggie Challenge. If you haven't seen their amazing quilts, check the links in Wendy's post and see what everyone has made. I haven't made my Baggie Challenge quilt yet, but plan to do it this month--after I get some Christmas gifts made!! Oh, it is coming quickly!

Hope you are finding ways to spread joy, and stay safe.

Until next time, 

Janet O.

 

Leaving you with this sunset from last night. The hazy sky from the inversion provides a bit of a glow spilling over the mountain top. This photo was taken from my sewing room window.

Lori's SAL and The Tiny Club

This is what I made for Lori's (Humble Quilts Blog) "Land That I Love" SAL. I haven't had a chance to quilt it, or name it.  

When Lori announced the SAL I was really in the mood to use fall colors, so I rummaged through bags of HSTs and my scrap basket under my cutting table and came up with everything for the blocks. The setting triangles and squares were cut from a FQ.

I keep telling myself I am going to hand quilt it, but it hasn't happened, so maybe I just need to machine quilt it and have it finished. And if someone has a name idea, I would love to hear it.

Now, just what is The Tiny Club, you may be wondering. Well, the wonderful quilt shop over the mountain, Village Dry Goods, is offering a series of 3 classes taught by Lynn Hopkins. It is all about 2" finished blocks. 

In the background you can see Lynn giving instructions. In the foreground is one of his custom rulers and patterns

Lynn has custom designed rulers that allow you to make precise 2" finished blocks based on a 3x3 grid--and that is no simple task. At each class he gives us patterns for 4 blocks, and demonstrates what we need to know to experience success. Below are some of the blocks he has made, and some of his quilts.

In the two photos above you see many of his 2" blocks. My hand in the photo on the right gives you a bit of size perspective.

 The blocks shown to the left are all made from silk ties--and they finish at 2" just like the others. If you have ever worked with silk, you know how hard it can be to keep it from slipping and sliding. Then, to make things this tiny and preserve accuracy is insane.  

Below you see a collection of Lynn's little quilts.

 

 

 

To the right is Lynn's Jacob's Ladder mini quilt, made from 2" finished blocks, of course.

And then we have the masterpiece! Look at this incredible quilt--all the little blocks within it finish at--what else? Two inches!!

I was so inspired afterward that I came home and made a few blocks myself. Five of them were from Lynn's patterns and the others were from my own patterns for 2" blocks. Mine are mostly based on a 4x4 grid (much easier to do than the 3x3 grid). I am doing them all scrappy from the fabrics in the basket under my cutting table. Someone's got to use them. :)

Today (November 13, 2021) was World Kindness Day. I hope you were able to find a way to surprise someone with kindness, whether you knew about the designation or not.

Until next time,

Janet O.